


Wake up

by DoppelgaengerDoodle



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4027225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoppelgaengerDoodle/pseuds/DoppelgaengerDoodle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Night Vale citizen wakes up in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake up

You wake up. Well, kind of. You try to open your eyes, but your eyelids are heavy. 

You try to sit or acquire a vertical position. Your back aches and cracks, and you feel a sudden thump as a wooden plank hits you in the face. _Oh, hell no_ , you think, as you suddenly know where you are. You reach out with your hands, trying to hold onto something. The air is the only thing that answers your desperate grip. That way, that way is where you should go. You slide to your right side, trying not to hit your head with the upper shelf. You suddenly start to fall and you hit the floor, confused. 

The floor should have been the other way. Your eyes, now opened, are filled with tears, and your nose starts bleeding. How did you get in here? And, most important, how are you supposed to get out of here? You see a couple of open books on the shelf where you were lying. The floor, up from your perspective, seems far away. You're lucky to have fallen this way, you think. You start walking, wandering between the bookcases. You look around, hoping no one, nothing, has seen you. The blood coming out of your nose drips and leaves a red stain on the ceiling. The smell. You can't smell it, but they can. You crouch and try to clean the blood with your hands, but the smudge is still there. 

You hear something. You notice movement on the corner of your eye. You try to think. That bunch of kids made it out of here. _But they are them, and you are, well, just you_ , says a little voice in your head. You shouldn't be here. You don't want to be here. You want to be anywhere else. Even in one of the retraining sessions. Not here. They never told you anything about this.

Through a bookshelf, you see a skeletal shadow, a bit taller than you, walking past on one of the nearby corridors. You duck down, trembling, you don't know what to do or where to go. They know you're here, and you know that. You know they'll find you at some point. You can only hope to get out as soon as possible. You can only hope that your end is fast. You blink and, suddenly, you stop being on the ceiling. 

You feel dizzy and you almost can't move, even if you know you have to. You step forward, slowly. One foot, then the other. You think you just heard a noise behind you. That's it, you say to yourself. That's how it ends. You realize that you already knew that. At some level, you have always known that it was going to be like this, but this fact doesn't make it any easier. You start sweating, your lips trembling, you think your knees are going to give up, at last, and you're going to fall down. 

The noise is getting louder, closer. You can't turn around to look at the source of the sound. You think that not seeing what is about to kill you is better than spending your last minutes looking at a shady figure coming closer, empty eyes, skull-like monstrous features. But, somehow, it makes it worse. The sound is closer. You hear the steps and a dripping deep breath, a gargling sound. 

Your imagination starts flying. All the horrors and fears of your life are now embodied in that noise. You try to move. **Run. Do something**. Face it and end it with some kind of honour, dignity. But those things doesn't matter any more, do they? Why should you care about how history remembers you? You won't be there anyway. 

You don't think that anyone would mention it at your funeral. You start doubting if there will be a funeral. _Here rests... Well, the limbs that we could find. We are not sure of who they were, we couldn't identify the body. Also, someone has to clean the blood puddle that's left on the library_. Yes, that would be it. Then you'll be one with the void, great and silent, that has accompanied you your whole life. That would be nice. You go out of this life screaming, like you came.

This thought is, at some level, reassuring. Don't get me wrong, you're still afraid of the dead that awaits you, of the great suffering and agony that your last breathing minutes will become. But you're not so afraid of non-existence any more. In the few seconds that you've been carrying this train of thought you've learnt more about life that in your whole existence. 

Now you're ready. Shaking, you put your left foot behind your right one. You slowly turn around, discovering the source of the sound. You look into its dark eyes, yours wide open, while a grin of terror and satisfaction takes over your face. You see it coming closer, now a few steps away from you. You....

You open your eyes. 

You're looking at the ceiling now.

On your night stand, a few books. How or where did you get those, by the way? You can't remember very well. You're covered in sweat, you're shaking. Are you smiling? You can't remember why. You are pretty sure you had a weird dream last night, but you can't remember the details very well. For some reason, you're not so nervous about your life situation as yesterday. That big decision is not that important, now that you think about it. 

It's true what they say: A nice night of rest makes everything easier.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought that it would be fun to write about just "normal" people from Night Vale.  
> I might write more like this one, I don't know. Tell me what you think ^^
> 
> Send me prompts at http://dnsknr.tumblr.com/


End file.
